After a complete crash-and-burn experience with conventional corporate advancement (flunky to manager in four months flat) I am currently experimenting with doing nothing at all and getting paid for it.
I don't do nothing, exactly. I answer the phone and schedule appointments and check people out after their appointments. I sell shampoo and skin products. I put makeup on people who don't want to look like they're wearing makeup. It isn't, as they say, exactly brain surgery. At least I can read at work.
Today is the second Sunday I've worked, giving the other receptionist a much-needed day off; she works two jobs, six days a week. Today I get paid hourly to gossip, read my book, check up on the news and, at the end of it all, do a load of laundry, clean out the color brushes, count the till and go home.
And yet I am dissatisfied. My brain hasn't seen much action lately. As I've always felt when long in the exclusive company of men, being in the salon atmosphere where 95% of our staff and 99% of our clients are female, I'm getting dumb.
In my more conemplative moments, I've started a theory that the two sexes and inherent (whether physical or socially derived) differences there between are essential for social progress. That's vague and more or less a "yeah, I know" statement, but just as people of disparate personalities push our buttons and keep us on our toes, the company of a strange and foreign body is antagonism of an entirely different kind. Biologically, this has been proven--pheremones, reproduction, etc. However, what of academics? I can't help but wonder if the surge of scientific, medical and theoretical breakthroughs of the last century and a half aren't so much due to humanity's innate velocity but to the gradual education and inclusion of women in academia, worldwide.
And I've done it to myself again. Inside a voice whines: "I wanna go to grad school...."
Yesterday a woman told me I should be a math teacher. I had just successfully explained to her in 30 seconds what even college-level math never had: how to figure out a tip. I'm not sure if that's adequate reference to get me a teaching job, but I'd do it in a second if not for the going-in-to-debt issue.
I don't do nothing, exactly. I answer the phone and schedule appointments and check people out after their appointments. I sell shampoo and skin products. I put makeup on people who don't want to look like they're wearing makeup. It isn't, as they say, exactly brain surgery. At least I can read at work.
Today is the second Sunday I've worked, giving the other receptionist a much-needed day off; she works two jobs, six days a week. Today I get paid hourly to gossip, read my book, check up on the news and, at the end of it all, do a load of laundry, clean out the color brushes, count the till and go home.
And yet I am dissatisfied. My brain hasn't seen much action lately. As I've always felt when long in the exclusive company of men, being in the salon atmosphere where 95% of our staff and 99% of our clients are female, I'm getting dumb.
In my more conemplative moments, I've started a theory that the two sexes and inherent (whether physical or socially derived) differences there between are essential for social progress. That's vague and more or less a "yeah, I know" statement, but just as people of disparate personalities push our buttons and keep us on our toes, the company of a strange and foreign body is antagonism of an entirely different kind. Biologically, this has been proven--pheremones, reproduction, etc. However, what of academics? I can't help but wonder if the surge of scientific, medical and theoretical breakthroughs of the last century and a half aren't so much due to humanity's innate velocity but to the gradual education and inclusion of women in academia, worldwide.
And I've done it to myself again. Inside a voice whines: "I wanna go to grad school...."
Yesterday a woman told me I should be a math teacher. I had just successfully explained to her in 30 seconds what even college-level math never had: how to figure out a tip. I'm not sure if that's adequate reference to get me a teaching job, but I'd do it in a second if not for the going-in-to-debt issue.
In case anyone reading this doesn't already know: Move the decimal point one number/interger/space to the left, then multiply by two. That's 20%. For you stingy types, divide by two and add the result to your first number, that's 15%.
No comments:
Post a Comment